Zissou Living the High Life

December 14, 2004

The highly anticipated release, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou easily topped the per theatre chart with $113 thousand in just two theatres for a $56,543 average. But since there was almost no doubt about whether the film would finish first, the real question is how well it stood up compared to Wes Anderson's previous release, The Royal Tenenbaums. That film, opened in 2001 with an average of $55,396 in five theatres, so taking into account the narrower release and inflation, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou debut is weaker, and with merely average reviews it probably won't have the legs either.

It's easy to tell that we're in the heart of Award Season as no less than 6 films earned a place in the $10,000 club. After winning the Per Theatre race for the past three weeks Bad Education dropped to second with a very impressive $27,005 average in 5 theatres. However, I fear that the studio might be expanding too slowly to take advantage of the excellent word-of-mouth. House of Flying Daggers saw its weekly box office and per theatre average sliced nearly in half to $13,694; this is not a bad result, but it likely means the film will not have major mainstream success. Speaking of which, A Very Long Engagement has also seen its per theatre average drop ahead of its expansion, this week landing at $12,527. Close behind were two films at the opposite end of the box office spectrum. Overall box office leader, Ocean's Twelve took home an average of $11,901 from is 3290 theatres while Born into Brothels earned $10,580 in its lone theatre over the weekend and $14,605 since it opened on Wednesday.

This past week also saw some milestones reached for several Per Theatre Charts alumnus:

  • Being Julia started out well, but couldn't maintain its per theatre average through its expansions. Even so, the film managed to make it to $3 million during the mid-week and with a Golden Glove nomination for Annette Bening, it could go further.
  • Kinsey hit $4 million early in the weekend and with a few nominations, it should easily make it past another milestone or two.

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Filed under: Ocean's Twelve, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, House of Flying Daggers, Kinsey, Being Julia, Un long dimanche de fiançailles, La mala educación, Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids